“It is like we don’t exist” – schooling experiences of Jewish children and adolescents in Malmö, Sweden

This qualitative case study analyses questions of exclusion in Swedish education from a Jewish minority perspective. The study draws on semi-structured interviews with 14 Jewish pupils aged 10–20 in Malmö about their experiences of attending non-Jewish schools. The interviews were interpreted through critical race theory and HebCrit. The findings show: (1) a structural privileging of Christian-Protestant norms in school routines and celebrations; (2) limited and stereotypical curricular representations of Judaism that exoticise Jewish pupils and position them as “Others”; (3) the normalisation of antisemitic jokes and slurs in school environments; and (4) the development of defensive or adaptive strategies that sometimes weaken connections to Jewish identity. These results contribute to understanding antisemitism as a form of structural racism within Nordic education and highlight the need to reconsider how multiculturalism and minority inclusion are enacted in Swedish schools.